Spilled Water Read online

  Spilled Water

  Sally Grindley

  First published in Great Britain 2004

  Copyright © Sally Grindley

  This electronic edition published 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  The right of Sally Grindley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978-1-40880-731-6

  www.bloomsbury.com/sallygrindley

  Visit www.bloomsbury.com to find out more about our authors and their books. You will find extracts, authors interviews, author events and you can sign up for newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers.

  For James, Chris and Sam, who are my pride and joy

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter One

  To Market

  I loved my baby brother, until Uncle took me to market and sold me. He was the bright, shiny pebble in the water, the twinkling star in the sky. Until Uncle took me to market and sold me. Then I hated him.

  ‘Lu Si-yan,’ Uncle greeted me early one summer morning, ‘today is a big day for you. From today, you must learn to find your own way in the muddy whirlpool of life. Your mother and I have given you a good start. Now it is your turn.’

  My mother stood in the shadows of our kitchen, but she didn’t look at me and she didn’t say a word. Uncle took me tightly by the wrist. As he led me from the house, my mother reached out her hand towards me and clawed the air as though trying to pull me back. Then she picked up my little brother and hid behind the door, but I saw her face wither with pain and, in that moment, fear gripped my heart.

  ‘Where are you taking me, Uncle Ba?’ I cried.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ he replied, his mouth set grimly.

  ‘You’re hurting my arm,’ I cried.

  He pulled me past the scorched patchwork terraces of my family’s smallholding, scattering hens and ducks along the way, and out on to the dusty track that led steeply up to the road. There, we walked, Uncle brisk and businesslike, me dragging my feet in protest, until we came to the bus-stop.

  ‘Where are we going, Uncle Ba?’ I whimpered this time.

  ‘To market,’ he said.

  ‘What are we going to buy?’ I asked.

  Chapter Two

  The Happiest Soul

  on Earth

  Everybody loved my father. My mother used to say that he was the happiest soul on earth. When you were with him he made you feel happy too.

  When there was just me, he used to lift me on to his shoulders and gallop down to the river, where he picked me up by the armpits and dangled my feet in the water. I screamed at the cold, but then he put my feet in his jacket pockets, one in each side, and we galloped off again, laughing all the way.

  When there was just me, he sat me in his rickshaw and cycled along the road, weaving from one side to the other, bump, bump, bump across the cobbles, singing at the top of his voice. I lurched up and down on the seat, yelling at him to stop but wanting him to carry on.

  When there was just me, he taught me to play chess and wei-qi, and sometimes I won, but I knew that he was letting me. We played mahjong with Uncle and my mother. Father and I made silly bird noises every time it came to the ‘twittering of the sparrows’, while Uncle tutted and my mother rolled her eyes heavenwards in mock exasperation.

  We never had much money, but I didn’t really notice because neither did anyone else in our village. Father’s favourite saying was, ‘If you realise that you have enough, you are truly rich’, and he believed it. ‘We have fresh food and warm clothes, a roof over our heads (a bit leaky when it rains) and a wooden bed to sleep on. What more can we ask for?’ he demanded. ‘And not only that,’ he continued, ‘but I have the finest little dumpling of a daughter in the whole of China.’

  My parents worked hard to make sure that we always had enough. Father set off early in the morning, his farming tools over his shoulder, to tend the dozens of tiny terraces of vegetables that straggled higgledy-piggledy over the hillside above and below our house. He dug and sowed and weeded and cropped throughout the numbing cold of winter and the suffocating heat of summer. In the middle of the day, he returned home clutching triumphantly a gigantic sheaf of pakchoi, a basin of bright green beans, or a bucket full of melon-sized turnips.

  ‘Your father can grow the biggest, tastiest vegetables on a piece of land the size of a silk handkerchief,’ Mother used to say, and I would skip off to help him because I wanted one day to grow the biggest, tastiest vegetables as well.

  Mostly, I spent the mornings with Mother, feeding the hens and ducks and collecting their eggs which were scattered around our yard. There were slops to be taken out to our pig and fresh straw to be laid. Once a week, along with our neighbours and their children, we carried our clothes down to the river to wash them. That was the best day. When it was hot, we children pulled off the clothes we were wearing and charged into the river, splashing wildly and shrieking our heads off. We learnt to swim very young and raced backwards and forwards through the sparkling waters. As soon as we were back on the shore, our mothers attacked us with soap, then we dashed into the water again to rinse it off, before running around in the sun to dry. In winter, the river sometimes froze for days on end. Some of the older children went skating on it, but Father said they were foolish because they might fall in.

  Mother was ready with soup and rice when my father returned at midday. He used to sit me on his knee and ask me what I had been up to all morning. I made up stories about fighting dragons and escaping from haunted temples and he would sit there saying, ‘Did you? Did you really? What a morning that must have been!’ until we dissolved into fits of giggles and Father said, ‘I hope the rest of the day will be quieter for you.’

  In the afternoons, Father returned to his terraces, or he would walk several miles with other villagers to work on the rice fields that they shared. Mother went to the village to shop and to gossip, and I went with her to play with my friends. Nobody minded us dashing in and out of the shops in a boisterous game of hide-and-seek, and the old men smiled as we peered over their shoulders to watch them playing cards on wobbly foldaway tables in the street.

  Back home again, Mother and I prepared the evening meal, ready for my fat
her’s return. Sometimes, if he was early enough, he took his boat out on the river to fish. He would let me go with him if I promised to be ever so quiet. Once we caught the biggest carp anyone in the village had ever seen. If we stood it on its tail it was taller than me! We took it to market and sold it for so much money that Father was able to buy us each a new pair of shoes.

  Father never worked on Sunday afternoons. If necessary, he worked still harder during the week in order to free himself for his ‘family time’. On Sundays, he sharpened all our kitchen knives, selected the very best vegetables from our farm, killed one of our chickens, and set to work with spices and herbs and ginger and garlic in preparation for our evening meal. This was his favourite time. We would sit at the table and talk to him as he chopped away. We were not allowed to help.

  ‘You have had to prepare my meals all week,’ he would say to my mother. ‘Now it is my turn to prepare your meal.’

  If ever Mother argued that he had been working all week long on the farm and should put his feet up, he simply said, ‘That is different, and in any case I enjoy cooking. I want to cook, and I want you to put your feet up.’

  Mother grumbled good-humouredly at his stubbornness, but we knew that he loved every minute of his weekly role as chef. And he was good at it. The meals we ate on Sunday evenings were the best, Mother was happy to admit it. When they were over, we sat down as a family and watched television. It didn’t matter what was on – it was just the being there together that we loved.

  Chapter Three

  To Market

  Uncle remained silent, sucking hard on a cigarette, leaving my question hanging in the heavy morning air, until a bus came along and he pushed me aboard. Two women I recognised from a nearby village were already sitting inside. They immediately asked us where we were going. Uncle said a name that meant nothing to me, while making it clear that he did not wish to discuss his business any further. I heard one of the women whisper that, my goodness, we were going on a long journey, and the two of them wondered aloud what on earth we might be going all that way for. Uncle ignored them, while I tried to make sense of the disturbing turn of events that had thrown my life into confusion.

  I gazed out of the window, slightly comforted to realise that the landscape was still familiar. Father and I had come this far many a time in the past, bump, bump, bump in his rickshaw. Then the bus stopped and the two women clambered off, waving goodbye to me, wishing me a pleasant journey. They headed in the direction of a street lined with colourful stalls. I saw that it was the market where my father always used to sell his vegetables and where we had sold his enormous carp.

  ‘Why aren’t we going to that market?’ I asked.

  ‘Too small,’ said Uncle brusquely.

  The bus rumbled on again, leaving the world I knew behind it, to climb, twist, speed through countryside, villages and towns I had never seen before. Gradually the motion of the bus sent me to sleep.

  I woke up to find myself stretched out across Uncle’s lap, his arm curled round my shoulder. When he saw that I was awake, he pulled his arm away abruptly, as though he didn’t want me to think that he was showing any affection for me. I sat up and looked around. The bus was empty apart from us. Outside, it was growing dark. How many hours had we been travelling? We’d left home soon after breakfast. We’d had nothing to eat since. I was ravenous.

  ‘How much further?’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Not long,’ said Uncle. He reached in his pocket and gave me a piece of cake which my mother must have baked.

  ‘When are we going home again?’ I asked.

  Chapter Four

  Your Heart is Filled

  with Stone

  Uncle Ba was my father’s brother. He was ten years older than my father. He had helped their mother to bring up my father when their father had died. I didn’t like Uncle much. I thought he was bossy, and he didn’t smile very often. He was always interfering in our lives, telling Father that he should go and work in a factory to earn more money, that he spoilt me, that I should go to a minder so that Mother could find work.

  Father would chuckle and say, ‘Your heart is filled with stone, my brother,’ but I knew that he was bruised by such words of disapproval from someone he loved. I once overheard him tell my mother that Uncle had been the most devoted brother to him when they had grown up together, and that he would forgive my uncle anything. He admitted, however, that Uncle had changed since wealth and position had come his way.

  Uncle Ba lived in a large house on the other side of the village, though we were never invited to visit. He caught a bus every day to travel to a factory two hours away. He had been a farmer like my father, but had been delighted to give up such gruelling work. He had never married. He used to say that he felt himself incapable of devoting enough time, energy and affection to one person to make them happy, especially having spent so many years looking after my father. Once, when Father wasn’t listening, Mother said that Uncle had become far too selfish to invite anyone into his life and how fortunate that was for womankind.

  Uncle was family, though, and family was important. Both my father’s parents were now dead, as were my grandparents on my mother’s side. Father would do anything for his brother, and regularly took him the pick of his vegetables and his prize catch of fish. He invited him to eat with us at least four times a week, even when we were short of food for ourselves. Uncle would sit there telling us about his new life and how much money he was making, how respected he was now and how he expected one day to be able to run his own business.

  ‘Just think, brother,’ he would often say, ‘if you were like me, you would be able to dress your wife in fine clothes, and she would be able to serve up a meal fit for an emperor instead of a pauper.’

  Mother would bridle with anger and reply, ‘He is not like you, and I have no desire for fine clothes.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Uncle would insist. ‘Every woman yearns for fine clothes.’

  ‘We are happy as we are,’ Father would say quietly. ‘People are all different in their needs.’

  Mostly, Uncle ignored me, except to criticise my table manners, or my behaviour, or, being a female child, the burden I imposed upon my family. I didn’t understand what he meant by that at the time, but I knew that he didn’t think much of me. Once, when Uncle spent a whole evening telling me not to put my head in my food, not to lick my chopsticks, not to jig up and down, not to hum, not to speak unless I was spoken to, I kicked him under the table, hard on the shin, and pretended it was an accident. He didn’t believe me and demanded that I be sent out of the room. My parents resisted, certain that I would never do such a thing on purpose, and I stayed. Uncle went home, furious. I was triumphant. Father looked at me and said, ‘I hope you didn’t kick your uncle on purpose,’ then he winked and turned away without another word.

  Chapter Five

  A Silk Swallow and a

  Handsome Tiger

  I was six when my baby brother was born. I remember Mother disappearing into the bedroom and Father boiling water in a pan and fetching clean cloths. I remember women from the village arriving and lots of hushed whispers and one of them sat me on her knee. I remember my mother screaming and my father, ashen-faced, telling me not to worry. I remember a small strangled cry and the village women cheering and my father hugging me and hugging me. I remember going into the bedroom with him and feeling his boundless joy and seeing my mother, her black hair damp with perspiration, holding the tiniest little baby I had ever seen. I remember my mother saying, ‘You’ve got a little brother, Si-yan. Isn’t he beautiful?’, and I remember holding his tiny hand and thinking I was the luckiest girl in the whole of China to have such a beautiful baby brother.

  Uncle Ba arrived just then and congratulated my parents loudly, before muttering quietly to my father – but I heard him – ‘Your wife got it right this time, at least, but there can be no more.’

  A shadow of anguish fell across my father’s face of joy. I tried to puzzle o
ut what my Uncle meant, as he brushed past me, demanding to hold my little brother. Then I wanted to stop him because I didn’t want him to go anywhere near.

  ‘He’s not yours, leave him alone!’ I heard myself cry.

  My father knelt down and held me close.

  ‘It’s all right, my little swallow,’ he soothed. ‘Uncle Ba won’t harm him.’

  I watched, ball-fisted, as Uncle picked up my little brother and rocked him in his arms. I saw his face soften and his eyes grow moist. I wished I knew what I had done to upset him that he couldn’t be like that with me. When Uncle had put my brother down again, he turned to my father and said, ‘Another mouth to feed, how will you manage?’

  My father gripped my shoulder. ‘We’ll manage,’ he said, ‘just as we always have.’

  Uncle Ba raised his eyebrows.

  ‘You may have to change your mind about that factory job,’ he warned.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ replied my father.

  When Uncle Ba had gone, my mother fell asleep. Father picked up my little brother and laid him in my arms. I gazed down at his apple cheeks and shock of black hair, the way his eyelids quivered and his lips sucked together. I loved him there and then, wanting him to open his eyes, to look at me and love me too.

  ‘Do you like the name “Li-hu”, Si-yan?’ asked my father. ‘That’s the name your mother and I are thinking about.’

  ‘Lu Li-hu,’ I tried out. ‘Lu Si-yan and Lu Li-hu, Lu Si-yan and Lu Li-hu,’ I sang. ‘A silk swallow and a handsome tiger. I hope the tiger doesn’t eat the poor swallow.’

  ‘When he is old enough, my handsome tiger will protect and treasure my beautiful silk swallow,’ laughed Father.

  ‘Perhaps your silk swallow will protect and treasure your handsome tiger,’ I giggled.

  Li-hu quickly flourished from a plump, gurgling, contented baby into a sturdy, boisterous toddler. I watched, entranced, as he fed from my mother, smiled his first smile, wriggled across the floor on his bottom, and took his first steps. I jiggled him up and down on my knee, pushed him in a wooden cart Father had made for me when I was little, helped him to eat his first proper meals, and sang lullabies to him at bedtime.